


All Hands

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Unresolved Sexual Tension, oh god England
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'England holds the cane  in one hand and the whip in the other, but there is no one here for him  to punish.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hands

**December 16 th, 1773**  
   
England holds the cane in one hand and the whip in the other, but there is no one here for him to punish. Unless perhaps he were to regress four centuries and flagellate himself; he reflects that self-punishment would be inappropriate, _so help me God I have not brought this upon myself_ and ten fathoms of untouched thought deep the question lurks, _have I?_  
   
He will not let this be called divine retribution, but he will be the first to declare it a plague. Yes, he thinks, or perhaps he says it because it feels as though the atmosphere in the room shifts a little in preparation, and he is alone, isn’t he, or being spied on, by whom? Yes, a plague upon the boy’s mind and actions, a plague to twist his obedience out of England’s grasp and change him, and he is momentarily torn- does he intone declaration or prayer?  
   
The pain is worse, the pain that he _doesn’t_ feel, is yet worse because the barrels and packets that spill and spoil their load are doing so in his harbour, and thus- hissea, contaminated by hiscargo, thrown by his charge. Until today England would not have thought it possible. And oh, he would sooner five-hundred common sailors rotting on the seafloor with the fishes picking at the cleaner parts of their flesh, leaving the bloated blue bodies to be washed up, a present for the lighthouse keeper- he would sooner the horrors of a shipwreck, all lost, than _this_ cruel reality.  
   
There is a clatter and a shattering of glass and he blinks, pulled back and out of his own mind- it seems his arm is raised and the leather cat hangs from his fist like its namesake, curled and poised and predatory. England notes how white his knuckles are (he has lit neither fire nor candles and the sun is setting; in this light the taught skin appears glowing), and it takes him a moment to see the white shards of a bone china teacup and its saucer cracked in two, messily cracked in two, fallen like bleached bone-splinters beneath the mantelpiece. His lip curls.  
   
There is no romanticism here; there is only the dying sun bleeding through the windows and igniting the furniture, and a shattered portrait of a general with his face obscured by a jagged crack (Wolfe, England thinks, perhaps, but in the effect of his death it matters not); its glass shards cling to the stone of the fireplace and mingle painfully with the china, and the leather of the whip is hot and calloused like the skin of his palm. Again.  
   
 _If I am to destroy_ , thinks England, _I would sooner destroy consciously_ ; he thrusts the cane into his belt as a promise to himself (for when the boy returns), and shifts his feet a little further apart, rolls his shoulders back and that sets the leather quivering, holds his expression in place and wishes _he_ could see it.  
   
It takes two quick lashes for the small portraits and the golden statues and boxes on the mantelpiece to fall. England cannot think of the action as a cascade- it is more akin to a mass suicide, and the noise made by dying jewels and stone clatters, makes his head ring as though bells were knelling. But it’s not enough, it’s not enough, bloodless and far too clean- again, he almost closes his eyes but thinks that would defeat his objective (he’s sure he has an objective somewhere)- no need to aim, wherever he strikes there will be some small measure of chaos- ah, and there, the tongue of the whip feels like an extension of his arm knocking a gold-and-tortoiseshell snuffbox off the mantel. It spills its insides and they float down after it, shatters, and it’s followed by a bottle, one he didn’t realise he had left.  
   
That’s a little more satisfying. Glass hangs suspended and falls into the fireplace as the bottle breaks and this one bleeds amber liquid, shining, the smell of alcohol and caramel (and rough-cut sails, rough-hewn planks, rough tanned skin and salt) crawling across the room low like smoke. With the next stroke, he’s exerting himself this time, feels the tightness in his shoulder and upper arm; he breaks the mirror above the mantelpiece. While more glass falls, a choir, shards remain clinging to the frame, a hundred thousand Englands, this England, and he will not look nor think on himself.  
   
He scars the canvases, yes, slashes in hardened leather like steel across the medals and gold on the breast of every man and woman, the hull of every ship in every portrait across the walls, regards the torn oceans above his head and he thinks it is his water, his dominion and under that of his crown the same way the boy is, no, was, no, _is_ \- the key to his power, the platform upon which he builds (and oh, he builds _marvellous_ things), since two centuries ago setting his superiority in stone or, rather, in _hearts of oak_ , and for the child to use this to plot and execute his downfall, for that _was_ his design and England is sure of it (the harbour, rather, even, making waves in calm water)- but there will be no downfall here.  
   
There won’t. He won’t permit it.  
   
England will come out stronger because England always comes out stronger. His head is spinning like he’s still got his sea legs but there’s purpose in that, purpose and resolution, not revolution. And he is vexed to see that there is something stubbornly unbroken; the pot of tea a frightened servant left for him on the table has gone cold, intact. There! –he has enough that he can afford to waste it like that, what difference can a few drowned packets make?  
   
So he tightens his grip on the handle of the whip though there is nothing left to flog or to shatter, least of all himself, and laughs without stopping, surrounded by what he has broken, and outside the bloody sunlight clots into darkness. 


End file.
